Often used on the go, hand sanitizers contain ethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol or both to kill bacteria and viruses on your hands. Alcohols have long been known to kill germs by denaturing the protective outer proteins of microbes and dissolving their membranes.
Hand sanitiser is mostly made of alcohol and alcohols destroy disease-causing agents, or pathogens, by breaking apart proteins, splitting cells into pieces or messing with a cell's metabolism.